


Is it Really Such a Crime For an Angel to Speak His Mind?

by Deastrumquodvicis



Series: No Longer One of the Angels [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Winglock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-24
Updated: 2012-09-24
Packaged: 2017-11-14 22:19:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deastrumquodvicis/pseuds/Deastrumquodvicis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes has his wings clipped after an argument with God over the IRA bombings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Is it Really Such a Crime For an Angel to Speak His Mind?

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the song Almost Human by Voltaire.
> 
> The in-character blog is at http://nolongeroneoftheangels.tumblr.com
> 
> Takes place in modern day, flashbacks taking place in 1975 and 1976.

Sherlock Holmes lay shuddering in agony.  His wings, thirty six years clipped, often throbbed or ached, but today was one of those days the pain impaired his ability to do anything.  He was convinced that it was a reminder from Her, as yesterday he’d reiterated to Molly that he’d been punished for doing and saying what he thought was right and that he hadn’t changed his opinion.

_“Those humans are dying.  They’re butchering each other.  It’s irresponsible to sit by and do nothing, watching life after life end unnecessarily and knowing who the culprit is.”_

_“What are you saying, exactly?”_

_Sherlock straightened up, not flinching as God Herself came within inches of him, intimidating the Victorian.  “I think you know what I’m saying.  We’re sitting here, watching them die, allowing it.  That, by proxy, makes us just as bad as the men, women, and children, setting bombs and murdering all in your name.  It’s as though you approve of the slaughter.”_

_Her eyes narrowed dangerously.  “And I suppose you think we should step in, regardless of the bigger picture?”_

_“Yes.  Every shrapnel-mangled child that comes up here because of the petty squabble below us, who died because the mortals couldn’t decide which way to respect you sickens me.  Your apathy sickens me.”_

_There was a murmur from the other angels, a shift in both position and mood.  Sherlock had always been one to voice his opinion, always a bit of a wayward son, but for some reason it had amused God to employ him in Her service.  But his typical vocalizing of his thoughts had escalated to rebellion, and even Mycroft dared not intervene on behalf of his brother.  “What would you have done during the Crusades?” It was a whisper, a taunt, reminding Sherlock that this was not the first time people had killed in Her name and would not by any means be the last._

_“The same.”  Sherlock turned and stormed off.  “I won’t sit here and do nothing while they butcher one another as you seem content to do. Maybe you've grown acclimatized to it, but I will not stand for the slaughter of children.”_

_“Are you questioning my authority?” God hissed, and Sherlock stopped in his tracks. It was a dangerous sound, when God was angry, when She found it necessary to let someone know how angry She was._

_“No, I’m well past that stage.”  The glistening crystal door shut behind Sherlock._

Sherlock curled up.  He had been right. He had.  How could She just sit by and watch it happen?  He’d never been extraordinarily patriotic, but he’d been more than a little heartbroken at the sight of civil war.  It had been one thing to watch not one but two World Wars, but he was furious that God would allow religion-based conflict to go so far, and in his own homeland.  No one else had had the courage to speak.

No one else had had the nerve to directly contradict Her orders, to defy Her wishes, to intercept a terrorist cell and disarm their weapons, saving lives, and turning in the would-be murderers. To make himself known on Earth for the first time since 1880, though he had not used his name. To interfere in what Sherlock thought of as Her experiment (why else would She not step in when the humans had invented nuclear warfare?)

_“Sherlock Holmes.  You have defied the will of God, interfered with Her grand design.”  The Archangel read the crimes steadily, as if it was normal, but in reality, such a trial had not been held in millennia.  “However, She is a merciful God, and you have an opportunity to repent.  Do you?”_

_Sherlock stood tall.  “No.  I refuse to apologize for being right.”  The Archangel sighed sadly as God rose to declare her sentence._

_“Then your wings will be clipped and you will be sent to Earth, to the nation you once called home.”   Sherlock did not flinch, even as two of the other angels grabbed his wings and spread them to their full span. He did not struggle as they fixed his wings with clips, forced the dark blue-grey feathers to spread, straining the muscles and testing ligaments to their limits.  A searing light, a laser cutter, almost, came from nowhere and burned into his primary flight feathers, cutting them off, one by agonizing one.  But Sherlock did not cry out, to his credit. He was sweating and writhing, but did not make a sound._

_The light eventually died out, the clips dissolved, and Sherlock collapsed to the floor, delirious with agony, every limb curling up, every muscle shuddering.  This pain was the worst he had ever been in, the worst he could imagine.  He vaguely registered falling, stripped not only of flight but also of raiment, falling helplessly towards Earth.  Air was not cooling, it was unwanted friction.  It only served to shred the severed nerve endings further._

_Sherlock had woken up in a filthy alleyway in west London, naked, still in pain, still delirious.  And the doctors, when they found him, could find no cause of his intense pain, could find no reason for the obvious delusional state of this naked man who claimed to be an angel. They tried to calm him, tried to get through to his senses, to break through the fiction he'd built for himself, the fiction they couldn't know was not a fiction. He'd spent a few months in a psychiatric ward, confused by the constant pain of wings that would never heal, ignoring the need to pretend they didn't exist, nursing them gently in the showers, curling inside them at night, hoping against hope that they would stop burning._

But they never did, not even three and a half decades later. Not completely. Yes, there were good days, yes, there were bad days, but they would always, always, burn.

So yes, today was a reminder.  But Sherlock would not apologize, would not say he’d been wrong.  Instead, he coaxed his heart to beat as he put the needle in his arm and injected the morphine in the hopes that it would dull the fire in his damaged feathers, just a little bit.  And, as usual, it did.  It made the punishment bearable.

**Author's Note:**

> God is Kate Mulgrew.


End file.
